The 2nd Jerusalem Biennale for Contemporary Jewish Art (September 24 - November 5) will showcase the work of nearly 200 Israeli and international professional artists in 10 exhibitions hosted in seven city-center venues.

Following the success of the inaugural Jerusalem Biennale in 2013, Biennale2015 will continue to explore the places where contemporary art meets the Jewish world of content.

Curators and artists with different approaches, who span the continuum of Jewish identity from secular to ultra-Orthodox and include non-Jewish artists, come together within the Biennale framework to give their own interpretation of contemporary Jewish art.

Biennale2015 hosts four exhibitions from overseas - New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Barcelona and, for the first time, the Jerusalem Biennale extends its reach with three simultaneous exhibitions in LA.

The vision of the Biennale is to create the right conditions for the artists to display their work in Jerusalem, engage in the current discourse about the Jewish world and help establish Jerusalem as the global center for contemporary Jewish Art. Learn more at: http://www.jerusalembiennale.org/

Culture Lab: Sacrifice is an interactive, mixed-media art installation and performance piece created by four artists working in dance, theatre and fine art. The piece engages participants around the central concept of sacrifice, leading them on a journey of self-discovery. This collaborative art experience asks the question: “What sacrifices have you made in order to be where you are today?”

Culture Lab is an interdisciplinary arts program, presented by the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center (SIJCC), designed to foster new work and provoke a community-wide conversation about arts and culture that is grounded in Jewish tradition.

The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (ViCA) and the Loft at Liz’s present a group exhibition from February 21 through March 30, 2015. The opening reception will be on February 21st, from 7-10 p.m. There will be an artist talk with a date to be announced. This follows from the enormous success of the first exhibition at the Porch Gallery Ojai in the Summer of 2014.

Curated by Juri Koll, with Catalog Essays by Peter Frank, Shana Nys Dambrot, and John Seed.

The artists in this show use watercolor, inks, and other liquid media for a variety of reasons – some love the risk of not being able to alter the result once it hits the paper. Others have a more formal reason for the process. Some use the medium as a contemplative, almost reverential experience, or for “quiet meditation or being present in the moment”, as Shana Nys Dambrot says. All these motivations inspire these works, and engage the audience with the here and now, regardless of when the work was completed.

Many of the artists have been influenced in some way by Japanese Sumi painters or modern artists such as Sam Francis. The catalog was produced with partial support from the Sam Francis Foundation.